Showing posts with label fiscal cliff legislation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiscal cliff legislation. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

HA HA HA - RIOTING BY THE RICH?



Whoo-hoo! An upper-class riot over the fiscal cliff legislation?  So asks Brian Kilmeade.  Not that the rich would be out in the streets themselves. They'd send the hirelings to demonstrate.

The commentary at Faux News is so fecking stupid, that you have to wonder how anyone with half a brain buys any of it. The English guy, Stuart Varney, who moved to the US to get away from Europe says the US is going European, yet I hear people "over there" lament that US culture is taking over the world. So. Which is it? According to certain people here in the US, the epithet "European" is the worst kind of insult, implying wimpiness, immorality, and all sorts of other undesirable qualities.

What you don't hear mentioned at Faux News is that without the awful fiscal cliff legislation, taxes would rise for everyone.  But the folks at Faux only care that taxes will rise for the rich.  Anyone who has an income of $250,000 is in the upper 2%.  How is it possible to be in the upper 2% and still be middle class?  And that's not to mention the "compromise" in the legislation that raises taxes only on those with incomes over $400,000 for individual filers and $450,000 for joint filers.
So, what are the two sides really fighting about? Surely the answer is, the future of the welfare state. Progressives want to maintain the achievements of the New Deal and the Great Society, and also implement and improve Obamacare so that we become a normal advanced country that guarantees essential health care to all its citizens. The right wants to roll the clock back to 1930, if not to the 19th century.
The war between the two parties is about what kind of country we want to live in.  A country where the rich will have an ever-larger slice of the pie?  Or a country where we give at least a slight nod to evening out the portions?

H/T to MediaMatters for the Fox video.